“I was just thinking the same thing,” Jonah mutters.
I literally bite my tongue so I don’t laugh. Well, here’s our official confirmation that things are, indeed, getting serious between our parents.
Cameron says, “Hen? Was that ...?”
“Jonah’s awake,” I tell my father. I clear my throat. “I thought ... maybe Astrid would want to know?”
Muffled words fill the line. And then Astrid’s voice says excitedly, “Chloe? Cameron says Jonah woke up?”
I hold the phone closer to Jonah. “Hi, Mom.”
Astrid bursts into noisy, happy sobs. She says something else, but it’s too hard to understand, so Cameron informs us they’ll be here in about a half hour.
I toss the phone toward the end of the bed. “Well now.”
“Quick,” he says slowly, “call Will next.” I love that his dimple is finally showing.
I laugh, and oh gods, does it feel good to laugh right now. Like ... maybe everything is going to be okay after all. Jonah’s awake. I just know Kellan will be laughing here with us any moment now. “You’re awful.” And then, “I did see them in a compromising position when I got here, though.”
His eyebrows go up.
“But I’ve been a little distracted, so I haven’t dug deeper on that yet. Time and place, you know?”
His smile fades. “I want to see Kel.”
I won’t let him out of bed yet. It’s selfish and awful of me, but until Kate gets here and checks him out, Jonah is going nowhere. So I erase the wall between our rooms so that Kellan’s bed is in plain sight. Hi brother is in the same position as he was the last time I checked on him—head titled toward us, blanket tucked up nice and neat.
The way my husband’s eyes fill up as he studies his brother devastates me. So I slide down in the bed, curving my body around his. “He’s like you, Jonah. He’s strong. He’s going to wake up, too.”
I hope I’m right. Please, please let me be telling him the truth.
Jonah’s hand finds its way to my hair and gently tugs through the strands. “I know.” A tiny burst of frustration escapes his lips. “Can’t feel him, though.”
Tiny alarm bells go off inside me.
“Before.” He motions toward his brother. “When he was ...” Another frustrated sigh. “His coma. I could feel him. Surge. Not now.”
I’m too afraid to even pull air into my lungs. Still, I say carefully, “You just woke up. Maybe you’re tired. Can you feel me right now?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “Only a little.”
I try to consider this logically. Maybe it’s the distance—even without the wall, Kellan is still a good distance away from us. I switch the legs of his bed to have rollers on them and push him closer to where Jonah is.
I try not to think about the hole in his chest. How his eyes rolled back. What it was like to watch that monster murder him. How I felt, believing the worlds had lost both Whitecomb brothers.
So I don’t fight it when Jonah insists I help him the few steps over to his brother’s bed. My heart just hurts, just flat out breaks repeatedly as I watch him touch Kellan’s face, trying desperately to get some sense of how his twin is. Or even maybe say something to him, something only they can hear.
“I feel him,” he finally whispers.
All the muscles tensing in my body ease up a little.
While not completely one hundred percent back to where he was before the Battle of Karnach (at least, that’s what the media is calling it), Kate gives us the best of news two days later: Jonah’s got a clean bill of health; there is no lasting damage done. And I marvel, despite growing up with a Shaman, over how somebody whose body suffered so much could be perfect once more.
Raul’s isn’t, though. Raul died the night before, just a minute past midnight. I held my Cousin as she shivered and cried silently, but she never raged like I would have guessed she would.
Funny, charming Raul Mesaverde is gone.
I snuck into his room when Lizzie and Meg were consoling Cora. I thought, I brought Kellan back, I can surely bring Raul back, too, right? But no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I willed it, his heart never jumped to life again.
My power of reanimation is gone.
Jonah and I were both granted clearance to go home the day after Raul died, but when Jonah balked at leaving his brother for even an hour, Kate pulled some strings for us so we could stay. Outside of sleeping, the Lotuses and Danes are our constant companions; Kellan is never left alone.